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A standards profile is a report of a seller's performance against a set of eBay standards, called metrics. These various metrics determine how well a seller is performing compared to others with similar selling profiles. The result of this evaluation determines a seller's seller level, which can be one of the following: 

  • Top Rated: The seller exceeds eBay's performance expectations. The seller has an established sales history and complies with other eBay policies.

  • Above Standard: The seller meets eBay's expectations.

  • Below Standard: The seller's performance has fallen below eBay's minimum standards and maybe have limitations placed on their account as a result until their performance improves.

For more information on seller levels, see the Seller standards policy help page.

Retrieving a seller standards profile

To retrieve their standards profiles, sellers can use the findSellerStandardsProfiles method to retrieve all standards profiles associated with their account or the getSellerStandardsProfile method to receive a single standards profile based on its program and cycle.

A seller can have multiple standards profiles, each distinguished by a program and a cycle. A profile's program denotes the regions where a seller has done business, such as PROGRAM_DE, PROGRAM_UK, or PROGRAM_US, or can denote all marketplaces were the seller has done business (PROGRAM_GLOBAL). A profile's cycle specifies the cycle for which a user's seller level and metrics will be retrieved. A value of CURRENT returns a seller's seller level and metrics from the last evaluation cycle (which occurs on the 20th of each month), while a value of PROJECTED returns the projections for a seller's seller level and metrics for the next evaluation period.

Interpreting a seller standards profile

A successful response returns one or more seller standards profiles associated with a seller. Each profile returns the seller's standardsLevel, as well as the metrics used to determine this level.

The standardsLevel field returns the current level of the seller. The values in this field can be returned as TOP_RATED, ABOVE_STANDARD, or BELOW_STANDARD. This level is determined by the how well the seller meets eBay's minimum standards, the results of which are returned in the metrics container.

The metrics container returns an array of metrics against which a seller's profile is evaluated. A sample metrics response is shown below: 

{
  "metricKey": "MIN_TXN_COUNT",
  "name": "Transactions",
  "value": 720,
  "level": "TOP_RATED",
  "lookbackStartDate": "2024-08-01T07:00:00.000Z",
  "lookbackEndDate": "2025-07-31T07:00:00.000Z",
  "type": "NUMBER",
  "thresholdLowerBound": 100,
  "thresholdMetaData": "(UPPER,LOWER]"
}

In this example, the metric being evaluated is the seller's minimum transaction count for a specific time period (specified by the lookbackStartDate and lookbackEndDate fields.) The thresholdLowerBound field specifies the lowest value (in the data type specified by the type field) that a seller can achieve for a metric and still qualify for their currently assigned seller level.

As seen here, the seller has a transaction count of 720 (shown by the value field), far exceeding the metric minimum requirements. As is such, their level is returned as TOP_RATED for this metric.

Note: Depending on the metric being returned, the thresholdLowerBound, thresholdUpperBound, and value fields can be returned as different data types. The thresholdLowerBound and thresholdUpperBound fields can be returned as Integers, Booleans, Amounts, Fractions or Doubles. The value field can be returned as an Integer, Boolean, Fraction, or Amount.

To reach a specific seller level, a seller must meet certain requirements based on a list of metrics set for each seller level. For more information about each program's applicable metrics and requirements, see the eBay Seller Standards program page on the Seller Dashboard.